I Hear the Bones Singing
by LA Knight
Summary: Violet Fitcher is Bluebeard's eternally-sixteen ex-spouse and the mother of his child. They're also the leader of a team of undercover fairytale cops from all corners of the world that hunt monsters out of bedtime stories. They're on the prowl, ready to take out Bluebeard once and for all...until they meet Nick Arai, who gets trapped in the bonds of her fairy tale.
1. 1779

**_PROLOGUE_**

 ** _1779_**

 _"Black house will rock.  
Blind boys don't lie.  
Immortal fear—  
That voice so clear—  
Through broken walls  
That scream, I hear!"_  
~ "Cry, Little Sister" by Gerard McMann

On cat-quiet feet, Violet crept down the stairs. The breath trapped in their chest threatened to burst out of them at any moment. Darkness pressed around them, and it almost seemed as if the shadows had teeth. Wintry cold still clung to the icy flagstones beneath their feet; the chill leeched the warmth from the air, from their body. They shivered, but pressed on to the bottom of the cellar steps.

They shouldn't have been doing this. Jonathon had told them not to. They'd promised him they wouldn't...but the mystery of it was driving them mad. It was just a cellar, for heaven's sake. Why couldn't they go into it? They were sixteen years old. They were Jonathan's spouse. It was their cellar, too, and they could look inside it if they wanted to.

Otherwise they'd lose their mind, and Violet was fairly certain Jonathon didn't want a lunatic to keep house for him. Besides, he would never find out. And if he did, he wouldn't be cross for too long—not with the wondrous news they had for him. What would he say when they told him they were going to have a baby? They could just imagine his face.

When they arrived at the door to the third cellar, they drew a deep breath, then wrinkled their nose at the odd, unpleasant odor underneath the smells of lye soap, cold stone, and frost. They would have to speak to Goodwin about checking the meat in the second cellar when they made it back up the stairs. The housekeeper would know what to do in order to replace whatever had spoiled.

 _That's peculiar,_ Violet thought as they inserted the key into the lock. The slender, golden skeleton key slid home with a sharp click like bones clacking together. _I think the smell's coming from in here._

They turned the key in the lock. The lock snicked open. For some reason their hand trembled as they turned the knob.

The door swung open. It took perhaps ten full seconds for Violet to realize just what they were seeing. Then they started to scream.


	2. Blue

**_CHAPTER ONE_**

 ** _BLUE_**

 _"You're so hypnotizing!  
Could you be the Devil?  
Could you be an angel?"_  
~ "E.T." by Katy Perry

"Good to see you, Nick!"

Glancing up from the dull gray carpet in the front office, I pasted on a smile for Mrs. Koschei, the AP Literature teacher. She seemed pretty cool, for a tiny middle-aged Russian lady. I figured she was in the front office to check her mail or whatever before heading out for summer English tutoring.

My smile kinda hurt as I slid past Coach Garrison, who'd been trying to recruit me for football the last two years. He glared as I sank into my secretary-appointed desk just outside the door to our in-school daycare. Summer school had just started—and so had summer football training. Thankfully, I had a better job than letting a bunch of jocks beat the crud out of me: organizing the school's daycare paperwork. I got messed with enough as it was, for so many lame reasons. This would keep me out of trouble.

I had desk-duty the first few hectic days because I was kind of OCD. My counselor said it was because I was organized and she could trust I'd get it done before summer school started officially in two weeks, but I knew better. I had to have everything filled out just right or there'd be chaos, and then my sister Ami—one of the "interns" doing a stint with the daycare over the break—would have a heart attack. So would Mrs. Shell, the vice-principal technically in charge of the center.

The center was a classroom-sized space just off the front office, where teen parents of Thompson-Aarnes High School could drop off their kids. One counselor, two teachers, and two "student-interns"—me and my sister—took care of the kids. And it looked great on my college applications.

I pulled a water bottle from my mostly-empty backpack and opened a folder. When the office door's bell jingled, I barely glanced up. People had been clomping in all morning to talk to counselors about messed-up schedules or a thousand other problems. Only as the front door thumped closed with another silvery jangle did something make my eyes flick up.

She walked in with a backpack made of blue duct-tape hung over one shoulder and a toddler balanced on her hip like she'd been doing it for years. A hulking guy in a brown muscle-shirt came in behind her, closing a lacy blue parasol. I figured the parasol was to block the blistering mid-May sun. Arizona summers were brutal, especially on little kids. The girl glided past my desk on killer knee-high boots and went to speak to one of the tired, sweaty counselors slumped at a computer beneath one of the blasting AC vents.

I didn't know why I kept watching her. Maybe because of the kid. If he was gonna be at the daycare, I wanted to check him out. Part of my job was dealing with any incoming problem children. I wanted to make sure the tyke wouldn't be one. We had enough already. Surprisingly, teens didn't make the best parents. Shocker.

The kid was bizarrely well-behaved, though. Most little kids would've made a grab for dangling jewelry (even a pair of glasses could be a temptation). Not that kid. The delicate, inches-long silver chains hooked into his mom's ear glinted in the harsh sunlight blazing through the office windows whenever she moved her head, but her baby didn't make a grab for them. Something metallic flashed at the girl's slender wrist as she filled out a form. The kid just kicked his legs and waved a fat, stuffed black sheep in one chubby fist. He didn't even show any interest in the blue-streaked hair hanging loose around the girl's face like a curtain of dark ink.

Now, I considered myself kind of an expert on profiling teen parents; I'd seen a billion of them when they dropped off their kids. There were a few dads, but mostly girls; a lot they just dumped their kids in the morning and picked them up later in the day, complaining about the fact that they even had kids in the first place. Not surprising, considering the way people treated them for having a baby. Few of the moms did what this girl was doing—lightly poking her kid in the nose with the capped pen so that he wriggled around, giggling when she bounced him; giving him little kisses on his cheeks so he giggled some more; and tickling him with wispy strands of her streaked hair. She seemed to love her kid. That made me kinda like her automatically.

But something about this girl bothered me, too. Though her focus seemed totally on the kid and the form she was filling out, I could tell she was also completely aware of her surroundings. Her stance, the way she angled her head and glanced around every so often—even the way she shifted to keep the guy with the parasol at her back...

I'd only seen that kinda tense vigilance once before, from my mom and dad—a habit my dad had picked up during two tours in Iraq and still hadn't dropped years later; my mom had always been like that. And the guy with the parasol was the same—hyper-aware, totally on edge. Almost as if he and the blue girl were waiting for someone to attack them.

Every so often, the girl touched the bejeweled chains dangling from her left ear. Just like, I realized with a weird churning in my stomach, my dad sometimes checked his gun to make sure it was loaded, even though it'd been years since he'd been in a combat-zone.

A shiver whispered down my spine. I didn't know why, but suddenly this girl with her happy toddler and umbrella-toting boyfriend or whoever he was made me uneasy.

Then the girl turned and looked at me. Right at me. Everything around me grayed out like television static. All at once there was nothing but white noise and shadows and that girl looking at me with strangely familiar eyes such a dark, dark blue they almost looked black. Dark as pools of ink. I wondered, if I fell into them, would she drown me? I tried to shake away the bizarre thought, but I couldn't move. Not while she was staring at me like that.

She was maybe twenty feet away, so I could see her electric blue lipstick as she shot me a wry smile, a silent "oops, ya caught me—sorry about that" smile. My mouth went dry. My palms went damp. The girl lifted her chin, like she was daring me or something. Daring me to do what, I had no clue.

She shook her head at me, making her hair ripple. It fell almost to her waist in a curtain of jet streaked with the same electric blue that painted her smile. Somehow, even from here, I saw her eyelashes were painted sizzling blue, too. I swallowed reflexively when her smile widened into a grin. My heart beat a staccato rhythm in my chest.

The guy standing next to her looked over and scowled. It was like the jerk growled at me or something, though I didn't actually hear anything. Icy sweat popped out on the back of my neck as my eyes flicked between the girl and the dude. Was I really this freaked out by a guy holding a parasol? Who was he, her boyfriend? Brother? They didn't look anything alike. Where the girl's skin and hair were dark, the boy's was Viking blond. Where she was small, almost petite, the dude was built like a grizzly. Why didn't Garrison bother that kid?

And the guy was still glaring at me. What was his problem?

"Hey, if it isn't Nick Arai!" Principal Kendall's voice jolted me from the staring contest with Bear-Guy. "Gettin' cracking on those forms?" When I shrugged and offered him a false smile, he clapped me on the shoulder. "Good man. That's why we pay you the big bucks."

Not that he actually paid me. I didn't even get extra credit. But it would look good on my college applications since it was in my desired field of study. That worked fine for me.

A momentary hush from the counselor drew my attention back to the blue girl and the grizzly. Something dark—a tat?—on his bicep caught my attention when the guy reached out and tickled the kid. I looked away before he noticed me. The dude carried himself like a gangster—like he was dangerous, and knew it.

I overheard the counselor make a comment about the girl's boots. I bent over my paperwork, ready to start filing, but couldn't help one last glance at the girl. She wore a lot of blue. Blue streaks in her black hair, blue makeup electric-bright against her brown skin, blue boots, blue mini-dress. There were even tiny blue stones dangling from the ends of her earring. The only things that weren't blue were her gray leggings and the chains around her wrist and neck. Maybe it was a political statement. Or maybe it had something to do with the disappearances.

A bunch of girls had vanished from around the city lately. I'd heard it on the news—about nine girls, all around fifteen or sixteen, vanishing over the past three weeks. So far, four headless bodies had turned up in the desert (which was weird; normally when people disappeared in Arizona, the bodies were never found). The only thing the girls had in common as far as I'd heard was their ages, and they'd all worn blue. The news might've had that part wrong, but I wasn't sure. And now there was that girl, all dolled up in blue. Maybe she hadn't heard blue was a dangerous color in Tucson?

Another jangle of the door had me lifting my head to see the blue girl stroll out, her brother or whoever following behind, shoving open the parasol as soon as they cleared the doorway. My shoulders relaxed. Until they walked out, I hadn't realized I'd been tensed up, like I was waiting for a fight.

I started to go back to my job. A flash of movement caught my attention, and I turned to see the blue chick glaring at a brown cat trying to stare her down from the top of the school's inner fence. How had it gotten on campus?

The girl raised her left hand—not a friendly "come smell me" gesture, but not like she planned on throwing a rock at the cat or trying to scare it off, either. It was almost like she was showing it something. Bright sunlight flashed off the bracelet around her wrist. Her nails had been painted a dark color. Probably blue, like her lips. There was something weird about her hand, but I couldn't figure out what. The cat fluffed up and hissed before scampering off.

Cold sweat began trickling down my spine when Umbrella Boy caught my eye and glared as fiercely as the girl had glared at the cat. Like I was scum on the bottom of his boot. Douche. He said something to the blue girl. She glanced at me. Her smile flashed, almost apologetic, before she moved off toward the school's main entrance.

Okay, I thought, watching her glide away, followed by the umbrella-toting grizzly bear. Wonder what that was about. Maybe she really didn't like cats. Whatever. Not my business.


	3. Kind Eyes

**_Chapter Two  
Kind Eyes_**

 _"Your eyes whisper, 'Have we met?'  
Across the room your silhouette  
Starts to make its way to me…"_

~ "Enchanted" by Taylor Swift

.

He had kind eyes, the boy watching me from the daycare desk. I felt those eyes on me even as I walked away, Duo following to watch my back.

Kind eyes. Not many mortals had kindness so obvious in their gazes these days. Especially not when looking at someone who seemed a little different. Someone—some _thing_ —like me. Maybe that was why I'd been a bit friendlier than I should've been.

Either that, or I'd gotten heatstroke from the brutal desert sun and it had made me foolish. I wasn't used to the Arizona summer yet, after all. It never got this hot in the Borderlands.

Strangely, I couldn't help wondering about that boy. He looked to be no more than a couple of years older than me; physically, at least. Copper skin and up-tilted eyes spoke of Japanese ancestry; the warm color of his skin complimented the scruffy black hair, bleached in places to rich, almost golden-brown as if by the sun. I wondered how that had happened. Maybe he spent a lot of time outdoors.

It shouldn't have mattered to me, since I had more important concerns (like where the rest of my hunting crew was and whether we were going to scout out more potential danger-zones in our new city tonight).

Yet I found myself coming up with different stories about how his hair had ended up so haphazardly sun-bleached. As if it was important. It wasn't; I couldn't think of anything more trivial. But for some reason it _felt_ important that I know at least a little about that boy. Since I wasn't going to risk his life—and mine—by getting to know him, I would simply have to make up stories. I was good at that.

Sad stories about where he came by his kind eyes. Horror stories about the various teachers and admin milling around him or passing by. Some of them were like me; their stories _weren't_ made up. I could see those stories, those Tales, in the power swirling around them like dust motes in the sun.

An unusually pale Japanese girl in hip-hugger jeans and a tank-top that I knew violated our new school's dress-code breezed past me. She did that hip-bump some modern girls did to be rude, even though I carried a toddler. Oh, well. Jamie had inherited a variation of one of my special talents. A fall would do no harm.

Even though I didn't watch the girl after she passed, I knew she went into the main building and stopped to speak with the boy who'd watched me register for classes. Duo informed me she thought I was a slut because of my boots—I enjoyed stiletto heels; they could easily puncture flesh, and blood slipped off vinyl like precipitation on a rain-slicker—and because of Jamie.

Who was she? That boy's girlfriend? Hook-up? The thought surprised me by depressing me a little. Or was she merely a friend? A witch with her spell-claws hooked into his soul?

I'd been there and seen _that_ before. But unlike a couple of the adults in the administrative office, the girl didn't have those swirling flecks of power floating around her. She was merely human.

A thought made me smile. If that girl, whoever she was, had known where my darling little Jamie came from, she'd probably have run away screaming. She certainly wouldn't have dared snipe about my hunting boots.

It didn't really matter, though, I told myself. After my crew's stint in 1950's Los Angeles, where I was just a little too young to pass for a "respectable widow" and too dark to avoid notice by those who cared about the color of my skin, I was used to comments about my loose morals.

Suddenly I wondered what that boy's name was. I really wanted to know. Which was foolish. Showing any kind of social interest in any boys other than Jamie (or Duo, who was like my brother, and could take care of himself) was stupid, not to mention incredibly dangerous, for me and the hypothetical boy. Even if he _did_ seem kind.

I missed being around nice boys (Duo didn't count—too surly—and Warren _certainly_ didn't). I missed flirting. I missed having fun…with someone other than my kind, anyway. We all carried massive amounts of emotional baggage and none of us ever relaxed enough to have _real_ fun. The hunt always overshadowed everything. Pathetically, I missed courting. I missed being something other than what I'd become since getting pregnant.

Realizing the nonsense filling my thoughts, I shook my head. I couldn't afford to be distracted by that mortal boy…or his eyes the same odd, soft gray-green as the sea where I'd been born so long ago, so strange and striking against his Japanese features. Eyes that reminded me of home. Eyes that hinted at secrets they couldn't possibly know…

I had so many secrets.

But I couldn't afford to miss any part of my life that I'd given up even before Jamie was born, back when I'd first met his father. Distractions had no part of my life now.

Duo was here to keep a lookout—just in case, since I _did_ have my son with me—but that didn't mean I could afford to drop my guard. The stupid grimcat that had snuck up on us not ten seconds ago was proof of that.

I couldn't help wondering what that boy, whatever his name was, had seen when I flashed a warning at the grimcat. Probably what most humans saw: a plain old stray cat, maybe a bit too sleek and well-fed to be an alley cat, but too feral to be someone's little lap-kitty, either. Only someone like me or the rest of my hunting crew could see what was _really_ there.

What had he seen when he'd looked at me? Had he mistaken me for a girl? Mistaken me for human? Likely both. Most mortals didn't think beyond the binary of male and female, and few considered that things besides humans prowled their world.

I glanced back at where that arrogant grimcat had hopped the fence surrounding the school's inner campus. She still watched me with glinting eyes, her oddly-elongated head pressed against the bars, uncaring of the sun-hot steel. She crouched like a frog waiting to jump, but jumping back over the fence would've been…unwise, unless she wanted to tangle with me.

I noticed the leathery darkness of the spike-heeled boots on her multi-jointed cat-legs and fought a wave of nausea. I knew what those boots were made of. White-slitted eyes dark as fresh ink narrowed in challenge. The fur that served her for hair, the creamy ivory of book pages just beginning to yellow with age, bristled when she realized I was staring back. She hissed, revealing dainty fangs in a too-human mouth. She flexed her fingers, unsheathing claws.

I was unimpressed. I was allied with two of the strongest of the grimcats. No little kitty-brat could compare to a ticked off lion-boy or panther-girl in a life-or-death battle.

Grimcats weren't exactly dangerous. Not to me and my crew, anyway. The little ones, like the fluff-ball on the other side of the fence, couldn't usually do much damage before someone managed to stop them. They weren't very big: in cat-form, they were the size of the average domestic cat; in humanoid form, about twice as tall as Barbie dolls. They often wheedled their way into mortal homes in cat-form and sucked the breath out of children while they slept, but nowadays people paid attention to spontaneous bouts of asthma in their little ones and dealt with the problem without any need for interference from my kind.

It was the larger ones, human-sized and bigger, that people needed to fear. They were big and they were usually _hungry_.

The cat-girl's black lips peeled back to show those dainty fangs again. She hissed; the distance between us kept it silent, but her intent was clear. The ears peeking through her thick fur flicked back.

I tightened my one-armed grip on Jamie. Just in case. He merely cooed in baby-talk about the kitty and pressed his face against my neck. A quick, telling glance from me to Duo had one of his massive hands going to the thick chain around his neck. I raised my arm and let the sun flash again on the seemingly delicate chain wrapped around my wrist like a bracelet.

Miss Kitty hissed again, but when she caught sight of the empty space where my little finger should've been, her eyes widened in recognition and she darted away. This time I watched her until she actually left campus, dashing across the main road.

I didn't really want to fight. Not here on campus with my son balanced on one hip. Not that I hadn't fought while holding Jamie before, but it was inconvenient.

But if anyone wanted to push me, I could push right back. With too much media coverage revolving around the girls disappearing around town over the last month, I wasn't in the mood to fool around today.

The only thing that erased any part of my mood as Duo and I moved toward the Fine Arts Building, where a petite Italian beauty—one of my crew—was talking to a man I vaguely recognized as the band teacher, was the thought that after this we were all going back to the house to ready for another hunt. Hunting, decked out in war-paint and chains, always helped me relax in a new city. I didn't like leaving my son home with just Yeh-Shen, who was basically my crew's "den-mother," but there was something so freeing about gliding through the inky shadows of the night streets with cold iron in my hand and an electric blue smile on my lips. For some people, that smile was the last thing they ever saw. They were the lucky ones.

Maybe if _I_ was lucky, I'd run into Fitcher again. My ultimate quarry. I knew he was out there. Somewhere. Maybe I'd finally be able to take him down. Then we could leave this city and girls would stop disappearing and turning up dead in the desert.

"Pamina looks happy," Duo said, pulling my thoughts back to the present when they would've rather lynxed through fantasies of tonight. But he was right. Pamina—our little Mina—looked deliriously excited as she bounced in front of the teacher before shaking his hand and nodding rapidly. He finally extricated himself and said goodbye, going into the Arts Building and leaving Mina to me.

She rushed over, gushing about how the marching band was looking for a flutist and Yeh-Shen had already said she'd pay for the fees and now Pamina wanted to know, could she please, pretty-pretty please, like, sign up for the band and be their flute player?

I was a firm believer in balancing work with pleasure—unless we were talking about Danni, another girl in my crew; her idea of "fun" involved things with really sharp teeth and an unholy craving for human flesh—so I acquiesced.

Mina squealed and threw her arms around me, crying, " _Grazie, Violetta!_ " before catching sight of one of our other crew members, a statuesque blond with hair in a long braid down to his knees. That was Isabeaux de la Tours—called Isis—the oldest surviving member of my crew after Yeh-Shen, and my second-in-command. Mina ran over to Isis and started babbling all over again. I smiled at them both.

Duo tapped my shoulder while Pamina squealed and bounced.

"Yes?" I spoke softly, not wanting Mina to overhear. She was so excited about finally going back to school. We were all from such a wide variety of times and places, I always forgot she'd been born and raised during the Italian Renaissance, at a time when children born in traditionally masculine bodies as she had been were encouraged to pursue education for its own sake. This was the first town we'd been to in a long while where we could actually enroll in school, since we were going to be here for some time. I didn't want to ruin it for her.

"That human's still staring at you," Duo muttered.

Surprised, I flicked my eyes back to the administration building. The boy from before had come outside. Now he leaned against the wall, talking to the chit who thought I was a slut, but his eyes were on me. Even from here I could see the impossible and strangely familiar green of them focused on my face. For just a moment I felt an electric sizzle of awareness whisper beneath my skin. The same awareness I got when I looked into Fitcher's eyes, or saw the handiwork of my prey. The knowledge, the _certainty_ , that here was someone I needed to watch out for. Someone very, very dangerous.

All my thoughts jumbled together like letters scattered from the pages of a book. Jamie, who'd been wiggling with happiness at seeing Pamina, went very still, watching me with curiosity in his baby-blue eyes.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way I did before jumping into a battle. It helped clear my head. Why was that boy still looking at me? Had he seen something he shouldn't have? And why was I having trouble looking away from him? Why did he have eyes that marked him as one of my kind, when he was so obviously human?

What was it about this mortal boy that made him feel so dangerous?

If this hadn't been so frustrating, I would've laughed. A regular human, dangerous? To me? I flexed the fingers of my left hand to remind myself that no one was dangerous to me anymore. If anything, _I_ was dangerous to _him_.

"Don't get any ideas," Duo reminded me. There was a hint of ursine growl under his whispered words. Was the mark in his flesh, the mark that was an integral part of what he was, shifting restlessly beneath his skin? Or did the wind tugged at his shirt? "Unless you want to get him killed."

"I know," I snapped, then flushed when I realized I'd just ripped his head off for nothing. "I know," I added a bit more gently. "Don't worry. I'm one-hundred percent focused."

From his patient look, I could tell Duo knew I was lying. The problem was, I shouldn't have had to lie in the first place.

I snuck another glance at that boy. He'd finally looked away. Maybe I'd imagined he was staring at me when he was just looking around. I breathed a small sigh of relief and turned back to listen to Pamina gushing to Isis about summer band camp. Mina loved music. How wonderful for her. All I knew about _that_ was, I would lose a fighter for the week or two she'd be gone. Maybe Yeh-Shen would help out. She was old, but she had some impressive techniques.

I always had a hard time saying "no" to Mina. She was so young compared to the rest of the crew. Only Jamie, Danni, and I were technically younger, though I felt ancient compared to Mina. So I just smiled at her and we went looking for the others. I didn't like being separated from them in this rat-warren, which felt as open and lonely as a blank sheet of paper waiting for ink to spill across it like blood. Anything could be watching us.

Of their own accord, my fingertips reached up to caress the cool iron of the delicate, blue-jeweled chains dangling from my left ear. Touching my weapons always made me feel better.


	4. Violet

**_Chapter Three  
Violet_**

 _"She acts like summer  
And she walks like rain…  
_ _She listens like spring  
_ _And she talks like June…"_

~ "Drops of Jupiter" by Train

After a long day in the main office, hunched over paperwork so that when I stood up my spine crackled like a cement mixer, I was happy for the long walk home. It was hot as heck, but it was a dry heat. Most Arizonans appreciated that. Humidity on top of hundred-and-five-degree weather would've sucked.

I wasn't a lucky guy. I'd never considered myself particularly _un_ lucky, but I wasn't the kinda guy who caught a break and found two-hundred dollars or rescued a hottie from whatever and then had them ask me out in gratitude. My life was fairly average. But for some reason, Fate decided it would be funny to have me run into that blue kid on the way home from school.

I'd processed their paperwork for the daycare today and realized I'd been misgendering them in my head. It shouldn't have mattered that they were enby, but being one of the few open-and-out bi dudes at my school could be pretty lonely. The queer students tended to stick together, so I couldn't help thinking about the blue kid and what it might be like to hang out with them.

Surprisingly, they were alone. No kid, no boyfriend/brother/bodyguard disemboweling me with his eyeballs. They walked ahead of me, a slender shadow, close enough that I could've called out to them and they'd have had no trouble hearing me.

I didn't. My sister, however, did.

"I'm going to kill you when we get home," I growled at her. Ami rolled her eyes at me. She didn't get it. I was hot, sweaty—and not in a good way—and I was with _her_. I was seventeen, and liked to think I acted like it. Ami was fourteen and acted like she was four; dirty-minded as a forty-year-old cougar, but still with all the stunning maturity of a four-year-old.

I pretty much dreaded running into anyone when I had Ami with me, but I was almost positive she'd be bratty because of what she'd already told me this morning: apparently the blue kid, Violet, was a slut for wearing "stripper boots" to school, and for having a kid. Never mind that I could see my sister's bra-straps peeking out of her tank top and she wore her jeans so low I was scarred for life; I didn't care about that except when she tried to slut-shame other people. And apparently Violet would be sleeping with half the guys in my class before Christmas. I'd been informed of all this to the accompaniment of my sister cracking her gum—which she did now, waving at the new girl as if Ami wanted to be her BFGHL or whatever acronym the freshmen used now for being friends.

The blue kid froze, but didn't turn right away. Sunlight flashed on the silvery chain around their wrist as their hand flew to their ear, like they were brushing their hair away or something. Ami didn't notice the tension suddenly humming through them, but I did. I had the weird idea that it would be a bad thing to just run over and tap them on the shoulder. Which was ridiculous; what would they do, punch me? I probably outweighed them by a good fifty pounds.

When they turned to us, they moved so fast their hair swung out behind them like a sweeping shadow. The sunlight caught on their lone earring and the silver chain around their neck. Something gold glistened against the top of their blue mini-dress. A weird expression crossed their face, almost like they were confused we were talking to them. Then their blue-painted lips curved into a hesitant smile. Gripping the bag-strap draped over one shoulder, they walked toward us.

"Hello," they said when only a few feet separated us. Their voice had the faintest hint of East Coast, but it held a whisper of something else, too. I could imagine this kid reading aloud; they had the voice for it. "Were you talking to me?"

I opened my mouth and realized I didn't know what to say. Crap! Why had Ami called them over? Just to screw with me? Despite the killer heat, Violet wasn't even sweating. Their hair was crazy-perfect, like the people in shampoo commercials. Whereas _I_ looked like a total slob. Was my shirt showing pit-stains? That would be great. Just freaking great. I'd look like a gross idiot in front of an attractive person. No guy wanted someone they were attracted to to think he was a loser. I didn't even know them, but for some reason I wanted to impress them.

"Yeah," Ami said brightly. Like she hadn't called Violet a ho-bag just this morning. I shot her a look that plainly said, _You are_ road kill _when we get home_. My sister just batted her eyelashes at me; she had crazy-long ones that made her look like a porcelain doll. "I'm Ami Arai. It's actually Ami, or Ami, but only my stupid parents call me that."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't say anything. Ami and I always told our parents they'd mixed up our names. I was tan and actually looked Japanese, like my dad, but my mom had named me Nick, after her dad. Ami was so white she practically glowed, though she had the same features I did, just not as pronounced; my dad had named her after his mom, Ami.

"This is my brother, Nick. You're new, right? We saw you registering this morning with your boyfriend and your kid."

Those blue lips smiled again. A different smile this time; almost like they were silently laughing at us. Then they caught my eye. They weren't laughing at _me_. They were laughing at Ami. Did they know what Ami had said about them? Nah. How could them? Ami wasn't stupid enough to repeat crap to someone's face, and she'd been trapped in the admin building with me all day helping get the daycare ready.

"Half right," Violet replied, tossing the long curtain of their hair over one shoulder. I realized the golden thing glittering between their collarbones was a skeleton key, one of those really old, clunky ones. "That was my son, Jamie, but the guy wasn't my boyfriend. He's my foster sibling, Du…Günter. I'm Violet Gregory."

"Yeah, I know." It fit them, somehow. Pretty, but the way they said it, I heard an undercurrent of steel in the words. "I filed the daycare paperwork so I saw your application."

Violet held out their left hand. Ami just blinked at it, like she didn't know what she was supposed to do, so I took Violet's hand instead. I was left-handed, too, so it wasn't awkward. They had a firm grip; different for someone presenting as traditionally femme. I was used to people saying "ow" when I shook their hands, even when I tried to be gentle. Violet didn't. They gave my hand a small squeeze, never taking their eyes off mine. Their skin was incredibly soft, a match for my natural copper and the marching band tan that hadn't gone away over the spring. I'd never touched someone with such soft skin before. Maybe they were like Ami and used a ton of lotion every day.

As I let go, my fingers brushed theirs. A static charge sizzled across my palm. My fingers twitched. I glanced down at our disconnecting hands and felt my eyes widen.

"Whoa," Ami muttered. She'd followed my gaze to Violet's left hand, and their long, slender fingers. "That's…wow. Ew."

Appalled, I elbowed my sister in the ribs. "Ami!"

Violet laughed. "It's all right. I get that reaction a lot." They held up their hand and flexed their fingers—their _three_ fingers. Their left hand was missing the pinkie. There was only a puckered, bone-white scar above the knuckle that would've connected their finger to their hand. That was the weirdness I'd noticed the first time I'd seen them. "I'm used to it."

"Lose a fight with a lawnmower?" My soon-to-be-dead sister chirped. I briefly considered socking her in the arm, then remembered that actually hitting her would probably hurt her, no matter how playful I tried to make it.

A shadow flickered across Violet's blue eyes, but they kept smiling. "Something like that."

"Well," I said loudly, hoping my sister would take the hint. "Ami's got a lot of homework, so—"

"I don't have homework," Captain Oblivious replied. "It's summer time."

 _Oh, for the love of—_

"Chores, then," I gritted. I was counting the seconds until my sister made some other snide comment. My sister was rude, and digging on a person who'd probably had a cruddy life—I was putting two and two together: foster sibling, edginess at being addressed by strangers, teen mom, missing finger, blah-blah—made me dislike Ami more than usual. "Let's go, Ami."

"Ohmigawd, fine!" My four-year-old—I mean, four _teen_ -year-old—sister huffed and started to shove past Violet. When Ami tried to push Violet out of her way, though, for a second _something_ flashed in Violet's eyes. Anger? Amusement? I couldn't tell. They almost-imperceptibly shifted their weight, angling their body. Ami's hand barely brushed their shoulder, but it _looked_ like she'd pushed Violet. It was a subtle move that only someone who knew how to fight would know; I'd seen my dad do it.

Blue eyes flicked to my face. Violet gave me that same "oops, ya caught me" smile from this morning as Ami stormed past them.

"Look," I said. "Sorry about that. She's kind of a brat."

The brat must've heard me, because she yelled a few creative cusswords over her shoulder and reminded me that I had summer reading for my AP Lit class. I had two months to read ten books. Mrs. Koschei was a nice lady, but she was a slave driver. A lot of the kids who'd signed up for AP with her were already referring to her class as "communist Russia."

"It's not a problem," Violet murmured, watching Ami stalk down the sidewalk. "You're in Mrs. Koschei's advanced literature class?" They added randomly. The sharpness in their voice threw me. Why did they care?

"Um…yeah," I said. When Violet didn't say anything, I added, "Is that a problem?"

Ugh. I sounded like Ami—sharp and confrontational. I hated that. It happened whenever I spent more than ten minutes in Ami's company.

"Sorry, I just—"

"I'm in that class," Violet said abruptly.

My brain stuttered to a halt. For a second all I could think was, _Hot person in my class has seen me look like a fat slob and knows my sister's a harpy. Great._

"Yeah?" I said, trying to play it cool. Maybe I wouldn't have to shoot myself—or strangle Ami—when I got home. "You like to read?"

Their fleeting smile was a little sad when they said, "Words are my life and livelihood."

"Really?" Not that I'd never met an enby who liked to read. I mean, they were everywhere. But there was a difference between reading and _reading_. I hadn't found too many people at school who enjoyed _reading_ , discussing and analyzing books. I always had to find them online. Violet sounded like that kind of person, though. "That's…awesome."

They shrugged. "It will help in class, I'm sure. So we have a class together," they murmured, as if they thought I'd be mad about them being there. Like they were apologizing. Why?

"Yeah. That's…cool." Was that seriously all I could say? "Um…do you have the required books yet?"

Violet shook their head. "I just got the list today."

I frowned. "Were you at school all day?" Why? I wanted to ask, but I didn't. It wasn't my business. It was just weird. What had they needed all day to do? Registering for classes and the daycare didn't take _that_ long.

"We just moved here—my siblings and I. We live with…our grandmother. She's too old to be dealing with everything, so it's my job to look after everyone. I had to help everyone else get registered and do the teacher-meet and all that. Speaking of siblings…your sister left."

I glanced down the sidewalk. Sure enough, Ami was just a small, dark blob slowly fading into the distance. I smiled.

"She knows the way home. Er…" Had that been Violet's subtle way of telling me to get lost? Was that code or something? I could never figure that sort of thing out; being on the autism spectrum made it kind of difficult for me to read people, especially the subtle stuff. "You probably wanna get home, though."

"Oh." Violet looked surprised and…disappointed? They quickly hid behind a smile. "I…of course. You need to be going and—"

"You wanna go to the bookstore?" I blurted. They blinked, taken aback. Double-crap; because I _so_ didn't sound like a loser right now. Fixing my eyes on the pavement, I added, "I mean…you just moved here, and you need to get your books. I need to get mine, too, so…I could take you. If you wanted. In my car, I mean. It's got AC. Since Borders closed, the closest bookstore is Barnes and Nobles, and that's kinda far. So we could go. I could drive you. We could get coffee. Except I don't drink coffee. I'm gonna stop talking now."

I was the king of Loserville. Someone shoot me.

Violet laughed. I'd been staring at a leopard gecko scuttling across the sidewalk, so it caught me by surprise. My eyes flew to their face. Their eyes were lit up, like sunlight gleaming through polished sapphires. They were smiling. I realized I liked their smile.

I was pathetic. I didn't even know this person…but already I liked them. A lot.

"I generally walk home to give myself time alone," they said. My heart sank. I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. "But," they added, "I _do_ need to get my books. And I don't know the town as well as I'd like…Still. It mightn't be the best idea for me to go with you." It seemed like they were thinking out loud rather than actually talking to me. I figured now was the time to argue my case.

"We're just getting books. Trust me, you need your books like, today. Mrs. Koschei assigned ten of them, and we have to do online and in-person discussions over the summer. The first book has to be read before summer school starts."

They raised their eyebrows. "Wow. That's…quite the workload. I thought we were supposed to be on vacation."

"Someone forgot to tell the teachers," I said wryly. They laughed again. Score! "So…you wanna go to the bookstore with me?"

They hesitated. "It's…only for books," they mumbled, as if trying to reassure themself. I frowned. Were they nervous? Or was I imagining things?

Before I could double-check to see if Violet really was uneasy about going book shopping—did they think I was hitting on them? Okay, I kinda was, in my own less-than-awesome way, but I hoped I wasn't being a creep about it—they smiled again. I got the feeling they smiled a lot, no matter what was going on in their head. Like a smile was a mask they wore.

"All right. Thank you for the offer, Nick." The wind gusted, tossing their hair across their face like wisps of inky silk. They tucked it behind their ear. "I take it we're walking to your house to get your car?"

I nodded and made an "after you" gesture. "My dad's car, actually. Er, truck. It's not too far."

"I don't mind walking," Violet murmured as we started down the sidewalk. "I like it. It helps me think. And I like stretching my legs before…" They clamped their mouth shut.

Straining for casual, I asked, "Before what?" I was one of those people that _loathed_ when someone left a sentence unfinished. Riff Trax was right—full sentences were good.

"Um…before work," they said quickly. "It's nice to get all loose from a walk before work. Although this heat is practically lethal."

"It takes some getting used to," I said. "Is it pretty cold, where you used to live?"

They shrugged. "It never gets very warm and it's always foggy, except in the middle of the day. At night, we get mist, so you have to watch where you step…" They trailed off, then shot me a quick look before adding with a weak laugh, "I don't really like talking about where I used to live, if that's all right."

"You miss it; I gotcha. We can change the subject. Um…you like music."

This time Violet grinned. "I love it, but not as much as Mina."

"Mina?"

"My sister, Pamina."

"Pamina," I said. I'd heard that name before. Where? Wait…"Like in _The Magic Flute_? The opera by Mozart?"

Violet's eyes widened. Something that might've been surprise edged with panic flashed across their features for a split-second before vanishing. They shrugged again. "I suppose. Maybe. I'm not much for opera."

A weird feeling crept up my spine. They were lying. Lying about not knowing about opera? Why? But I wasn't gonna call them on it. Maybe they'd been messed with for being a nerd back in their old town. Being into geek or nerd culture on top of being enby? That would explain why they seemed so on edge all the time.

"I'm not much for opera, either, but _The Magic Flute_ is pretty good. It's about Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night. She gets kidnapped by Sarastro, the Mage-King of the Day, and she and her true love have to fight a bunch of people, journey to the Underworld. All sorts of crap. And I just exposed how much of a nerd I am, didn't I?"

Violet smiled. "I won't hold it against you."


	5. Enticing

**_Chapter 4  
Enticing_**

 _"I dream of rain,  
I dream of gardens  
In the desert sand…  
I dream of love as time  
Runs through my hands…"_

~ "Desert Rose" by Sting

I knew this was stupid of me, I was _screaming_ it at myself, but despite the fact that it was suicidally reckless, I accepted Nick's invitation to go to the bookstore.

I could've driven myself, but we'd only been in the city a couple weeks. I didn't know where Barnes and Nobles was. Danni, one of my crew, probably knew and could've gotten us there in five seconds if she'd felt obliging (which wasn't often; Yeh-Shen frowned on any of us using a talent outside of a hunt). How else was I supposed to get my books?

The others, except Isis and Mina, would've laughed at me for caring so much about regular books—after they shredded me like paper for even speaking for more than two minutes with a human. I was potentially putting all of us in danger.

And Nick. I was endangering him, too. What did that make me, that I'd risk exposing him to my world for the sake of a few books?

I opened my mouth to tell him I'd changed my mind and I would simply walk home, when he turned to me. His smile was bright, quick as the turning of a page. His gray-green eyes like the ocean after a storm, a color I'd only ever found where I was born, lit up with flecks of seafoam blue.

Blue eyes on any boy had put me in hunting mode or terrified me since before Jamie was born—they always reminded me of _him_ , of Fitcher—but not now. I'd never seen that shade of blue anywhere except during our eight-month assignment in Jamaica back in the nineteenth century. The ocean had been that same intense, tropical blue as the flecks in his eyes.

Ocean eyes and surfer hair. Before I could think better of it, I blurted, "Do you surf?"

Nick blinked. His lashes were nearly as long as Isis's, which was saying something.

"I used to," he said with another quick smile. He smiled nearly as much as I did. Was it sincere, or was it a reflexive defense for him as well? "We used to live in California when I was a kid. I had to quit when we moved here before high school. Why?"

"Oh. Your hair," I replied, staring at the sandy sidewalk under my boots. I hadn't felt this awkward since…since before I'd married Jamie's father. Irritation skittered down my spine. I was too old to feel like this. Like some pubescent human. I'd played the public school game before; why was this different? Why did I feel like a school child instead of simply acting the part of one?

"Marching band," he explained. "And I took winter drumline, so the sun-job didn't disappear once fall was over."

"I see," I said, because I had nothing better and I felt like I needed to say something. When Yeh-Shen and Duo found out about this, I'd never hear the end of it. Never mind that I was the leader. They only remembered that when it suited them.

"Here we are," Nick said suddenly, voice strained.

My eyes jerked from the sidewalk to fix on a two-story stucco house with ceramic shingles, the same unique color as the red rock formations in northern Sedona, sloping down the peaked roof. Like every other house in the cul-de-sac, it had no lawn; just a yard full of small stones in various shades of cream, brown, and gray. Silver and copper pinwheels jutted from the rocks at haphazard angles. A white Ford truck stood parked in the sloped driveway. Geckos and rattlesnakes cut from thin sheets of copper decorated the front of the house. A squat brown pot sprouted a dozen or so purple campanula blossoms by the front door.

I couldn't explain the feeling that hit me low in the stomach when I looked at Nick's house. It was…quaint. Nothing special about it. But I suddenly desperately wanted to go inside. I hadn't been in a human house just to visit since joining my crew.

"My dad made those," Nick said, gesturing to the hanging metal reptiles. "When he got back from Iraq the second time. He likes making stuff like that. There's a million wind-chimes and suncatchers behind the house if you want to see."

It would've been wrong to say yes. Even more wrong than accepting his invitation in the first place. I knew I ought to act like an adult and say no…but I really wanted to see the so-called millions of suncatchers. I'd seen a few from a distance when we'd been in LA, but it wasn't the same. I couldn't explain why or why it was important to me, but it was. Maybe because it was such a simple, carefree thing to do. I needed simple and carefree after the last few weeks. Or maybe it was because Nick looked so nervous.

"Sure," I said. "I would love to."

Nick beamed at me. A lightning-flash of pleasure shot through my chest. The only person who ever smiled at me like that was Jamie, and that hardly counted—I was his mother.

I followed Nick up the gently-sloping driveway past the truck with its handful of bumper-stickers. One of them said _I Do Believe in Fairies._ So did I—tinkerwisps were nasty little junkies and pushers, many of them. Another sticker, white with red letters and playing card symbols all around, read _Curiouser and curiouser._ I was reminded of the cardreapers I knew. But I particularly liked the black and green quote from _The Wizard of Oz_ : Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

 _Oh, I'm not a witch at all,_ I thought as we came up to Nick's front door. He fished a key out of his pocket and slid it into the lock. _I'm older and far less obvious._

Though I knew a few witches—beldames, azelphresses, sweetwitches. Most of them weren't so bad unless some idiot let them near one of their weaknesses. Every one of my kind had some sort of weakness; the sweetwitch who taught Home Economics at Thompson-Aarnes' Achilles heel was small children, elementary-flavored, for example. But so long as she followed my rules, I wouldn't have to hurt anyone. Killing a teacher would be messy.

My chest tightened when Nick held the door open for me. I was reminded of Jamie's father, before…before everything had happened. I ducked my head to hide my expression and slipped past Nick into the shadowy interior of the house.

The change from sweltering heat to cool air conditioning nearly knocked me off my feet. Chilly air whispered over my skin. I looked up to see a vent darkening the shadow-shrouded ceiling over my head, belching wintry cold. It was bliss after being outside. I wasn't sweating, but that didn't mean I hadn't felt like ink thinning out under the sun. Lavender and laundry detergent scented the air. It reminded me of Isis when he and I worked in the garden.

Thinking of the garden with my bone-lilies, my living memorial to dead girls across the world and throughout time, I was abruptly reminded of the bright campanula on Nick's porch.

"Who planted those flowers?" I asked, gesturing back to the door. To my surprise, he flushed.

"The rampion?" He asked. I was surprised; most people didn't know that rampion was another name for campanula. "I did," Nick added, surprising me further. "I like plants. Sort of. Easy stuff, nothing crazy."

"So do I," I said, unable to hide my excitement. Nick raises his eyebrows, a smile tugging at his lips. He'd been embarrassed to admit to liking gardening. Why? "I have a garden at home; a little one in a greenhouse." That last bit was a fib, but how to explain the existence of our vast and very wet garden to this human boy who had no idea what I was? It couldn't be done.

I wouldn't let that dim my excitement, though. Not many of my friends enjoyed gardening. Mina was too busy with her music and studies. Yeh-Shen said "grubbing around in the dirt" reminded her too much of the past. Isis worked in our garden because he had to in order to survive, but he didn't like it, and he refused to do anything with our little vegetable patch. Danni tended Lirea's water plants now that Lirea was gone—and Warren would help because he'd do anything for her—but Danni did that out of obligation, not because she enjoyed it. Krysta couldn't set foot in the garden without killing something. Duo didn't like planting things, because it made him angry to walk into our little patch of garden and see the red and white roses, and the bone-lilies in their neat little rows of corpse-blue petals tipped with brilliant scarlet and dull rusty red.

Witch, whose talent was the closest to mine, was the only one of the others who would spend hours in the "greenhouse" with me. It was nice, I realized, to have someone _else_ who liked plants, too.

It was also another reason I should've stayed far away from Nick. We already had too much in common—a love of books and reading, a fondness for music, and now green thumbs. It wasn't fair, to myself or him, to encourage his overtures of friendship, much less reciprocate.

I kept telling myself that, but I didn't ask to go home.

"Yeah?" Nick said. "Cool. Come here, I wanna show you something."

He led me down a hallway lined with professional photographs—Nick and his sister at different ages, Nick with his parents, Nick's school photos, his family at parades sporting rainbow flags, Nick in his marching band uniform.

I paused for a moment to look at the band photo. He'd doffed his hat, and his sun-streaked hair fell across his forehead in a sweep of mahogany and jet. Seafoam and tropical blue flecks glinted in his ocean eyes. There was happy color in his sun-kissed cheeks. His smile was cheery as a little boy's. I liked this picture. I found myself wanting to look at it for a few minutes in order to study Nick's features. It made me less uncomfortable, studying a picture versus staring at the actual boy.

Then I dragged my eyes away from his face long enough to actually notice the uniform Nick wore in the photograph.

The military-sharp uniform jacket looked like a British army coat, scarlet with white piping and gold braid. A pang hit me and I quickly averted my eyes, struggling to keep my breathing even.

Nick had noticed my pause. He glanced back, a question in his eyes. I forced my lips to curve upward to reassure him that nothing was amiss. It was a lie, of course, but I lived my life by lies. After all, how was I supposed to explain that thoughts of redcoat soldiers from before just the Revolutionary War made sobs swell like toxic bubbles of salt in my throat?

All Broken Tales had a weakness for our memories, the stories of our lives. That was why I hated red military jackets, why Duo refused to eat fish, why we never interrupted Mina playing her flute or Krysta looking in the mirror. Memories could be the downfall of my kind. That was why I forced myself to resist the heartache burning through my chest and pretended all was right with my world—because I couldn't allow myself the luxury of weakness, in case it ever came back to bite me.

With that false smile still plastered on my face, I followed Nick into the living room, skirting a coffee table whose top looked like a stained-glass fairytale illustration, and into the kitchen/dining room. A sliding-glass door, covered with wooden slat-blinds, stood by the dining room table.

"If you like gardens, you'll probably like our backyard," Nick said. He yanked the pull-string to haul the blinds up with a cicada-like _clacking_ sound, letting in more intense desert sun. Sliding the door open, he made an after-you gesture and waited for me to step out.

I knew I shouldn't. I knew that every time Nick tried to show me something, tell me something, I should've rebuffed him and gone home. But for once—for the first time in too long—I could be a regular person around someone. I didn't have to be Violet the Leader, Violet the Huntrex, or even Violet-Jamie's-Mother. I was simply Violet.

So even though it was stupid, even though it was irresponsible, and even though I felt like every time Nick opened his mouth I was falling into some sort of inescapable trap, I stepped out into the dazzling summer sun and waited for my eyes to adjust to the glare.


End file.
